About us

Who We Are

Snaile Inc. is a privately held company founded by Armstrong Holdings, a Canadian private investment firm, in January 2015. Based out of Huntsville, Ontario, Canada, the company launched with its flagship product focused on servicing Canadian customers with its community mailbox mail notification device. Deployed as a Hardware-as-a-Service (HaaS) model, the system utilizes patent-pending (PCT) LED diode technology to detect the physical presence of mail and notify users via the Cloud.

Snaile quickly moved into the international postal market with new Internet of Things (IoT) applications for its technology including first mile street letter box mail detection, last mile parcel locker available inventory tracking with parcel aging detection and passive mailbox security all connected via the Cloud.

Our Team

Patrick Armstrong, CEO

An accomplished entrepreneur and business leader, Patrick Armstrong has continued delivering an impressive success portfolio across multiple industries. Since 1999, he has helped to develop and launch five companies which have all enjoyed both acclaim and distinction. His leadership as both CEO, Director of Product Development and Business Strategy directly contributed to these companies’ enduring success stories.

John Callan, Advisory Board Member

John Callan founded The PostalVision 2020 Initiative in 2010 out of frustration with what he perceived as the postal industry’s reluctance to acknowledge the approaching tsunami of digital disruptive innovation that was barreling down on our traditional USPS operating model. He sensed a critical need to expose the crisis and collectively discuss what to do about it in an open and objective conversation with all stakeholders.

Having started his career in the seventies as a Postal Service disrupter himself by founding Calico Air Courier, then merging it into DHL Express, John spent the next few decades pushing the postal/parcel envelope at DHL, TNT Skypak, Purolator Courier and pioneer online shipping system developer, Milestone Systems, before beginning his strategy consulting practice advising USPS. Under Coopers & Lybrand and PwC, he thought-led projects on the USPS’s Expedited & Package Services Business Plan, PostOffice Online and International Business Unit strategy. For the latter he led the breakthrough alliance with DHL to create Global Express Guaranteed, the first co-branded USPS product with a competitor. And his counterpart at DHL was Mike Comstock, with whom he would later found Ursa Major Associates in 2000.

John and his Ursa Major colleagues have advised mailing and express delivery industry leaders such as, Pitney Bowes, FedEx, DHL Global Mail, Neopost, as well as many start-ups on strategic issues in the progressively integrating mail and parcel value chain. John has played key advisory roles in several USPS-OIG studies regarding Expanding the Postal Platform into the Digital World, Parcel Strategy, Retail Strategy and IP Strategy. As a well-known and highly respected postal industry expert, John has appeared on CNBC, NPR’s Morning Edition and Marketplace; has been interviewed by the Washington Post, Kiplinger Letter, Post & Parcel and E-Commerce Bytes; has authored Op-Eds for The Hill; is a familiar speaker at industry conferences in the U.S and abroad and has written numerous articles for trade publications.

In all his work, John likes to begin by taking a high-level ‘Google Earth’ view of the postal ecosystem, carefully exploring the transformative nature of its landscape. He endeavors to track the trajectory of the industry and its players while keeping a cautious eye out for hazards and a sharp focus on opportunities. PostalVision 2020 represents the most challenging expedition of John’s career and he welcomes all to join him and his team in exploring what lies ahead for America’s postal ecosystem.

Robert Zukowski-Konopka, Central & Eastern Europe Advisor

Born in Poland, he graduated from the University of Szczecin at the Faculty of Economics and Organization of Maritime Transport and Communications. He has many years of professional experience starting with twenty one years at Poland’s Ministry of Transport and Communications. He then served ten years as the Head of Marketing at Polish Telecom SA. The next eight years he worked at Polish Post SA as Director of Networks and Operations for the national postal operator where he ran nearly 1,500 people. Within the last 3 years he has established the international market called pocztowotelekomunikacyjnym as well as being an expert in transport on Central and Eastern Europe for Guidepoint Global Advisors of New York.

André O. Brown, VP Engineering

André heads up the engineering team and masterminds how Snaile devices connect to the Cloud in both consumer application and Postal Operator analytics applications.
With an understanding that technology is an enabler for businesses, André provides technology leadership with a solid understanding of the importance of meeting business goals.
Having worked in roles from core software engineering to technology innovation and thought leadership, he brings experience from Government, Retail and Hospitality, ICT and Banking. His unique ability to communicate in both the language of technology and that of business, allows him to bridge the gap between these two fields and move teams towards common goals.

André holds a BSc. in Computing and Information Technology, a certificate in Project Management, and has over 10 years’ experience in the technology field.

Elmar Toime, Advisory Board Member

Elmar Toime is an independent advisor to the postal sector based on his broad experience as a senior executive in the industry. He is a regular commentator and speaker at industry events. He lives in London, United Kingdom. He is chairman of Postea, Inc, a postal technology group incorporated in 2006 and is a member of the Supervisory Board of Deutsche Post DHL, the world’s leading logistics company. He advises at the board and corporate level as well as working with start-up firms in the postal and logistics sector. He has particular interests in corporate governance, business strategy, and organisational development.

Elmar was the chief executive of New Zealand Post Limited from 1993 to 2003 where he diversified its business base into new areas of activity, including into courier and express services, third party logistics, digital services and in 2002 the establishment of a new, full service retail bank, Kiwibank Ltd. This move into banking exemplified his long interest and commitment to extracting value from the post office retail network. Through the New Zealand Post subsidiary company, Transend Ltd of which he was Chairman, at its time the largest postal consulting firm in the world, New Zealand Post acquired a 30% share of Malta Post, the first postal privatisation. In this period New Zealand Post had top executives managing postal companies including South Africa Post, Namibia Post, Botswana, Trinidad and Tobago, amongst others.

In 2003 he moved to the UK when he was appointed Executive Deputy Chairman of the Royal Mail Group, with roles including chairman of the Royal Mail management board and chairman of GLS B.V., a leading parcel delivery logistics company in Europe. He left Royal Mail at the end of 2004. During a period in 2007/8 he was interim CEO of the SKYCITY Entertainment Group, a major New Zealand listed company, stepping in from the Board where he had been a long serving non-executive director. He led the company in a period of transition and including a takeover attempt, requiring him to deal interactively with the financial markets.

Elmar has been voted by his peers for a life-time achievement award for leadership in the postal industry. Born in Italy, Elmar grew up and was educated in Melbourne, Australia and has qualifications in Science and in Economics from the University of Melbourne. He is a Fellow of the New Zealand Institute of Management and a Fellow of the Royal Society for Arts, Science and Manufactures.

Janras Serame Kotsi, Business Development Advisor, South African Region

Janras Serame Kotsi has vast experience and expertise in the postal, logistics and retail sectors. The operational and strategic experience in these sectors spans over a period of more than 30 years. Janras has project management experience that enabled him to implement and deliver 1. Quality Management System that complies with ISO 9001: 2008 in the Mail Business of SAPO in September 2013 (Accredited by SABS); 2. Managed the roll-out of physical addresses in under-serviced areas and exceeded an annual target of 1m addresses from 1999 to 2014; and 3. Generally known to have established the SAPOA Postal Forum (http://www.sapoaonline.net/) for the SADC region. The Forum invites presenters across Africa, Europe on postal strategies, sharing of ideas and best practices, benchmarking, mapping the way forward for the posts in order to improve postal services in the region.

Janras has international experience in the postal and logistics sector and has immense contribution he can offer the industry. He has delivered presentations at international, continental and regional fora on many topics in the past. Janras also represented the SA Post Office as a spokesperson across Electronic & Print media and radio for a number of years.

Adrian King, Advisory Board Member

Adrian has been a strategy and business development consultant for 25 years.

He has worked across a wide range of sectors, however for the last 20 years his primary focus has been on the Postal Sector.

His Postal consulting started with Sweden Post the first market to liberalize and over ten years he worked with the Letters Management Board on a wide range of productivity, commercialization business development, operational change and business development issues. Since then he has lead over >150 projects for over 20 organizations worldwide.

His consulting focus is on strategic positioning, commercialization, regulation, new business development, e-commerce and organizational change. He works in or leads diverse multi-national project teams and has core skills in strategic analysis, economic and business analysis, and business development planning.

His consulting career had largely been based in two organizations Omega Partners and the Strategia Group. He was a founder employee of Omega and became an equity partner at age 29. He then founded the Strategia Group which continues to work in the sectors identified above and works within a network of senior industry practitioners and consultants. Whilst working with these two organizations he had had the opportunity to work and partner with a number of the leading international consulting firms

Patrick Bartlett, Advisory Board Member

Patrick Bartlett is a Senior Executive with a proven track record in identifying and exploiting business opportunities that drive bottom line results. Patrick was President of Canada Post, Borderfree until 2008. He held various other senior positions at Canada Post, including General Manager of International Sales & Product Management, General Manager of Parcels.